


Nine-Tenths of the Law

by Jenwryn



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Arthur Finds Out, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-08
Updated: 2011-03-08
Packaged: 2017-10-16 19:35:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/168614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenwryn/pseuds/Jenwryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An 'Arthur finds out' story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nine-Tenths of the Law

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vyadh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vyadh/gifts).



> It's been far too long since I've posted something! That said, this was born from the title of children's [picture book](http://www.penguin.com.au/products/9780670071609/nobody-owns-moon), which I stumbled across when I was making up a list at work.
> 
> It also happens to be a gift for a dear friend of mine. I hope she likes it. ♥

'Nobody owns the moon,' says Merlin, out of absolutely nowhere, and Arthur can feels his eyebrows going up his forehead whether he wants them to or not; Merlin is gazing tired-eyed at the half-dark sky, so maybe he doesn't notice. It's actually a bit strange, to be honest; the way that Merlin is so skilled at paying Arthur no attention whatsoever and then, as if contradict himself, he'll do nothing _but_.

Merlin's gaze shifts; clear and wide and having forgone the moon for Arthur, as though to prove Arthur's point. 'Completely free,' he adds.

It takes Arthur a moment to realise that his friend – his servant – his most infuriating of persons – is still talking about the moon. Arthur shakes his head, falling back onto the safe familiarity of a long-suffering tone, and declares, 'Sometimes, Merlin, you are the oddest thing.'

'Not as odd as you,' counters the younger man, ducking his head a little and his lips making a poor show of not smiling wryly. 'Aren't you supposed to have put me to death by now?'

The words make the air cling tighter, colder, against the bare skin of Arthur's neck. Part of him hates his friend, with a hate that makes his lungs sting. Part of him; but it wheezes and suffocates beneath the weight of everything else. Hate would be too easy.

Merlin's head is still tipped downwards, yes, but his gaze is resting stubbornly upon Arthur.

There are a lot of things Arthur could say. Could, would; should, even. Instead, Arthur snorts. He snorts, and he rubs at his face, suddenly exhausted, and the reality of the day – the cold steel truth of it, even beneath the fuzzy, unwelcome facts – finally crashes into him. 'I think,' he mutters, 'I could produce a lot of reasons for having you put to death, Merlin.' He pauses, fiddles in an un-princely way with the stained sleeve of his shirt. Adds, 'Ineptitude being foremost amongst them.'

Not that Merlin actually _is_ inept these days – well, most of these days. Not that at all, really, more that it's simply one of those things that Arthur says; simply one of those automatic statements that they bat between them.

It's all so simple.

It's all so bloody exhausting.

Merlin is quite for a long, long while. A cloud, fine and flimsy, passes across the moon and wreathes around it like a girl with a loose-stitched petticoat. The air chills further, night drawing in closer against them. Merlin says, 'I am sorry, you know. About—'

Arthur's bones ache. 'Not yet,' he says in a rush, 'Don't talk about it, not yet, not yet, I just—'

Arthur doesn't know what he _just_.

Merlin is looking at him still. His face has risen up, chin set like a gentleman, not a servant; chin set like a man, not a boy. He makes a motion as though to put his hand on Arthur's arm, but doesn't. 'I would have told you,' he says, voice almost steady. 'I could have, I suppose, though obviously...'

The clouds shift again, resettling themselves then moving with almost a skitter to their gait; the sky, behind them, slips a darker shade of night.

Arthur can feel everything he knows, and doesn't want to know, and always knew, and never ought to have known, shifting with the pull of... of _everything_. He doesn't like it, and it makes him feel old. Old, beneath the crush of the day, and the ache of it, and the dried flecks on his face, and the knowledge that the worst of the grief, the edge of the betrayal, hasn't even really reached him yet.

The bigger picture is too big, and he's too old-young to want to see it. At least, not yet. At least, not tonight.

He can smell it at the edges of his senses, regardless. He's Arthur, after all. He's a Pendragon. He's his father's son.

Oh, his _father_.

'Arthur,' says Merlin, and Arthur looks at him; Merlin's face is pale in the not-light, Merlin's eyes are full of that expression that Arthur has only ever seen the man use on him – and Arthur has looked, by God he's _looked_ , has been watching it, and cataloguing its every appearance. It's warm now, that expression, warmer than he's ever seen it, and it makes the ache of him melt at the edges, as though his bones don't care about grief and betrayal but only about the warmth of Merlin.

His father had warned him; warned him, about the price of a servant who looks at you with that kind of warmth.

But then, Arthur had already warned himself.

'Shut up,' Arthur says, tired. 'Really Merlin, just shut up.' Before the man can complain or protest or, God help them all, look hurt, Arthur adds, in a voice that even he can hear the uncertainty colouring, 'Shut up, and show me again. What it was. That you did. Before. When you...' Another pause, because the words are hard, almost biting, even beneath the soft, soft warmth. Another pause, then he almost-whispers, almost-commands; 'Before, when you saved me.'

Surprise, on Merlin's face; then pleasure, and something – something that fans the warmth into little flames of spice and barbed wire.

Not looking at Arthur anymore, nor quite at the moon, Merlin shivers, once, then stretches out his fingers. His hand is so white, so thin.

Merlin speaks, and gold gleams against it.

It isn't at all what the man did earlier, not even remotely.

The warmth in Arthur builds, so heavy and tiring and brilliant.

The gold on Merlin's palm is brilliant, too; brighter and brighter, making the moon pale in comparison, and then it's solid, heavy as the warmth itself, and in its place there sits a crown – plain and perfect – a crown, balanced on the slight curve of Merlin's hand.

'You do know,' Merlin says, slowly, lowly, carefully; as though the fact that he's still alive, despite everything, has confirmed his presumption that he can use whatever tone he pleases; his voice curling into that one of old knowledge that worries Arthur, because it speaks of a wisdom he's scared of accepting. 'You do know, Arthur, that you are, and always will be, my only king.'

Arthur closes his eyes, and the crown is on his head. He can feel the weight of it; solid, ordinary, metallic to his touch as he places his own fingers against the cool of it. He feels as though he's just been crowned before a silent court; feels, in the same breath, as though he's just has his royalty stripped from him and woven into something much more cutting.

'Of course,' Merlin adds, 'that doesn't make you any less of a twat.'

Warmth catches in Arthur's throat. It becomes a grin, and a sigh, and slips to his hand, which moves from the crown to settle against Merlin's cheek.

Warmth, then, that is both real and unreal; both inside and out; both in Merlin's eyes, and in the way that Merlin closes them, long lashes dark against pale, and tips his face closer, closer to Arthur's touch.

'Don't ever,' Arthur is saying, from habit or truth or hate or love, 'don't _ever_ keep something like that from me again.'

Tomorrow, tomorrow he's going to have to deal with the horror of it; deal with the lives saved and the lives lost and the times and the whens and the hows and the whys. Tomorrow, he can deal with the weight of the crown on his head. Tomorrow, he can think of something more than the way Merlin puts a hand against his arm, and squeezes.

The night moves in the flags, in the black of the trees; in the moon, above them, shifting onwards, nobody's business but its own.

'Nobody owns you either,' Arthur says, and Merlin puts his mouth to Arthur's skin.


End file.
